Wednesday, August 25, 2010

Hey, There's A Pub Date Coming!

What with travel, a new pooch, and a few other things of significance having happened recently I've almost forgotten that the paperback of The Other Lands is just about to pub! It's in stores on August 31st! I very much hope you'll pick up a copy for yourself (if you haven't read it) or for a friend (if you have read it and would be kind enough to pass it on).

For my part, I'm making good progress on Acacia 3. I'll have more specifics on that as we head into the fall.

Monday, August 23, 2010

Saba!

Saturday, August 21, 2010

Wildcards Paper

Look what came in the mail!

It's the manuscript for Fort Freak, the collaborative Wild Cards novel that I'm a part of. Nice to see my name mixed in their with the other authors. (And nice to see it on the same page as George RR Martin!) Not out in real form until next year, though...

Friday, August 13, 2010

Fort Freak Sample

Thursday, August 12, 2010

Look At What's Selling Now

I'm on Mainland Scotland now. After a couple of days in Perthshire we're now hanging out at my brother-in-laws at Kinlochard, in the heart of the Trossachs. Good internet connection, so I'm catching up on things internetish. So here's a link...

Athans: What is the one novel every aspiring fantasy author has to read?

Anders: It isn’t The Lord of the Rings. I can’t tell you how many people pitch me with their brilliant fantasy concept, and when I grill them on who they read, it’s Tolkien and no one else or since. If you want to sell fantasy in today’s market, then you need to have read George R.R. Martin, Steven Erikson, Patrick Rothfuss, Joe Abercrombie, David Anthony Durham, Brent Weeks. Look at what’s selling now. Read what’s selling now.

Monday, August 09, 2010

About To Leave Shetland

Since this isn't exactly a family blog, I'll not offer a complete treatment of the holiday. It included hill and cliff walks, fishing trips, contentious games of Loups-Garou, a fashion photo shoot (more on that later), tons of eating and drinking, lots of chat, a trip to Hermaness, the northern most point of the British Isles, lots of family time... Great stuff.

Here are a few images, mostly nicked from my brother in law's family blog:

I also did a little business - an interview with Radio Shetland and a reading at the Lerwick library!

Thursday, August 05, 2010

Lev Grossman Says Smart Things

He does. I remember the first time I heard him interviewed, promoting The Magicians. I thought, "I like this guy." And then I met him... and I still liked him!

He wrote a response to the New Yorker's list of "Twenty Best Writers Under Forty". As I'm sure you'd imagine there are no declared genre writers on the list (unless you consider literary fiction to be its own genre, in which case it's a list limited to that genre). Lev finds this frustrating, and a bit silly. Among other things, he wrote this:

"I have a thing about popular/genre fiction and literary fiction. I think and write about the difference/non-difference between them, and the history of that difference, a lot. For reasons I’ve explained way better elsewhere (see those links above) I happen to think the collapse/confusion/obsolescence of that difference is the most interesting thing going on in contemporary fiction. It’s how we’re finally metabolizing/moving on from Modernism, which had a lot to do with inventing that difference in the first place, toward a kind of writing that is new and exciting and uniquely of its time. Which is the job of every culture ever. This is our avant-garde."